Question of the Day.

Why don't going, doing, and boing rhyme?

Yikes!

Yikes! I have been appointed to a substantially more ``administrative'' position. Bye bye.

Google vs. Desk

I was preparing for a seminar when I realized I couldn't precisely recall a particular mathematical definition. So I googled the term, and immediately found it, highlighted in yellow, via Google Books. Then I noticed that the text referred to by Google Books was sitting on my desk in front of me.

So...something comes to mind about searching the whole world over and finding the answer right in front of me.

[Note: I am following the practice that ``google'' as a verb is not capitalized, but the proper noun ``Google'' is.]

The Endless Cycle.

Month 0: A new envelope from the American Mathematical Society arrives in my mailbox, containing one or two papers to review for Math Reviews. I leave the envelope in my mailbox.

Month 2: I receive an e-mail reminder from the AMS that I have articles to review for them, and that I should complete the reviews in a timely manner. I remove the envelope from the mailbox, open the envelope, scan the titles of the papers enclosed, return the papers to the envelope, and return the envelope to the mailbox.

Month 4: I receive a second e-mail reminder from the AMS, essentially duplicating the two-month reminder. I remove the envelope from my mailbox, and place the articles on a corner of my desk.

Month 6: I receive a final reminder from the AMS, promising to publicly humiliate me in various ways if I do not submit a review within approximately 30 days.

Month 6 + 3 Weeks: I read the papers and submit reviews to the AMS.

Month 8: A new envelope from the American Mathematical Society arrives in my mailbox, containing one or two papers to review for Math Reviews.

Film Review of the Day (Painful Mathematics).

Carrie Rickey's capsule review of It's Complicated in today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

Nancy Meyers' double-variable comedy stars Meryl Streep as an amicably divorced restauranteur dating architect Steve Martin. When her ex, Alec Baldwin, by now remarried to younger woman Lake Bell, rekindles their amour, the algebra of x and y factors overlaps with the geometry of the love triangle.

Ouch!

Today's Choice.

My younger son started high school today. For much of the summer I have been telling him and his brother (already in high school) that they should use hand sanitizer almost constantly throughout the day at school -- after using the bathroom, after touching a computer keyboard used by other students, before eating, after touching a doorknob, after touching a handrail, after hearing another student somewhere within 100 feet sneeze or cough, etc. A few days ago I bought 2oz bottles of hand sanitizer for both kids for this purpose. The goal, of course, is to avoid catching the H1N1 virus.

But then, yesterday, I started to have second thoughts. Constant, obsessive hand sanitizing could very well label a new ninth grader as, um, weird.

So the question becomes: Which is worse, contracting H1N1 or being a social outcast?

Sheesh.

Commerce Regulation of the Day.

Describing an unsuccessful dead-shark transaction at the Casablanca Fish Market (Miami, Florida), CNN reported:

The men were turned away because they did not have a permit to sell the shark, said Martha Longueira, who handles purchasing for the Casablanca market.

Compare with:

Summer Vacation. Not.

Faculty at universities can be divided into two camps: Those who teach over the summer and those who don't. And it is almost a tautology that research active faculty do not teach over the summer -- summer is when they are most productive, without those pesky students to bother them. Moreover, in mathematics, having a grant that provides summer salary is the primary badge of approval of a successful research program. (In particular, at all of the universities with which I've been affiliated, promotion and/or tenure is nearly impossible for faculty not holding such grants.)

Since the 1980's I have had summer grant support essentially every year, with a couple of gap summers where my family and I just made do with the 9 month academic salary or with a small internal university grant.

But this summer I find myself for the first time since graduate school without summer grant support and with a frighteningly low bank balance. So I'm teaching two summer courses -- which amounts to essentially a full time job for six weeks. Since my various other professional responsibilities are not going away (not to mention research that I still want to finish this summer, in time for a Fall conference), it now feels like I'm doing two jobs. It's making me cranky.

I don't expect to add much to this (admittedly vanity) blog until the summer term is over.

Naming the Living.

The news of Michael Jackson's death this past week reminded me of another departed pop (of a sort) icon, Jerry Garcia. Indeed, the surviving members of Garcia's band, The Grateful Dead, have recently reunited. The curious thing is that this new, er, reincarnation of the band is called The Dead. Wouldn't The Grateful have been more appropriate? (Like, aren't ``the dead'' exactly who are not in the new band?)

Privileges of the Academic Life.

For one thing, you can publish a 5+ page essay complaining about the colleagues you find boring. (I could only get through about a paragraph before I became too...oh never mind.)

Ethics of the Times.

``Randy Cohen, the magazine's Ethicist columnist, examines the news from an ethical perspective.'' -- From the New York Times' Blogs page, describing Cohen's blog The Moral of the Story.

Does this mean that the other columnists do not examine the news from an ethical perspective? (I'll skip the obvious and logically flawed joke that the other columnists write from unethical perspectives.)

Mood Elevation.

This video of Victor and Regi Wooten lifted my spirits immeasurably.

For Memorial Day.

Nothing I say or do can ever adequately acknowledge the sacrifices of those who have fought and died for this country.

Book'im Danno.

The other night after returning home from the local library, I noticed that I had not checked out the books I was holding. I had been so preoccupied while at the library that I had simply walked out with them. The alarm must have sounded without my noticing.

So the next day when I had some spare time I went back to the library, half expecting to be taken down and handcuffed as soon as I walked in. Or maybe there would be on prominent display some grainy black-and-white photos of me from the closed circuit video. Or at least I would receive a few strong words when I showed up at the checkout desk.

But when I did explain to the clerk at the checkout desk what had happened, her eyes went wide, and she started to gush about what an honest man I was. It was embarrassing. I think she was genuinely shocked that someone, after successfully absconding with some books, would actually return them. Sheesh. The times we live in.

Sentence of the Day (Category: Propositional Logic)

``If Peaches never existed, she surely would have invented herself.'' --Jonathan Valania, writing in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reading Roundup.

1. I came across two recent John Sandford novels, one in the local library and one in the bargain section of Barnes & Noble: Invisible Prey, and Dark of the Moon. I had found the last few Prey books a bit tired, but Invisible Prey was very good (VG). Dark of the Moon, kicking off the Virgil Flowers series, also rates a VG. By ``very good'' I mean that both novels are well plotted, feature believable characters, and have reasonably well crafted prose. I started reading Sandford maybe seven or eight years ago, and I still think that the first four Prey novels are excellent. (However, I still haven't completely forgiven Sandford for naming one of his side characters ``Del Capslock.'')

2. I finally read Michael Connelly's, The Brass Verdict. I'll rate this one a VG+, the plus for some clever tricks. In particular, Connelly places his longtime protagonist Harry Bosch in a supporting role, without providing any of Bosch's internal thoughts -- giving the reader of Connelly's Bosch series a chance to view this familiar character from the outside.

3. In the early 1980's I read and thoroughly enjoyed Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park, the first in the Arkady Renko series. I revisited the author a few weeks ago, finishing the Renko series: Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs, and Stalin's Ghost. These books all rate an Excellent. My favorite was Wolves Eat Dogs, set in contemporary Chernobyl and its surrounding area. Reading Cruz Smith's detailed descriptions of that contaminated region, and the few souls who scratch out their existences there, was exhilarating, revelatory, and terrifying.

In Honor of the End of the Semester.

Here is my favorite anonymous review of my teaching, from ratemyprofessors.com:

This guy is a really good teacher but he's a complete jerk. no social skills whatsoever. if you don't mind- again, he is a great teacher, just don't expect any jokes.

I particularly enjoy the proximity of ``great teacher'' to ``complete jerk.''

Journalism.

It is now widely known that the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine (AJBJM), complete with honorary editorial board, was in fact an advertising ploy for Merck, created by Elsevier; see, e.g., here for details.

A few comments and questions:

1. It has been reported that all of the articles included in AJBJM were legitimate peer-reviewed articles already having appeared in ``real'' journals. So the primary deception appears to have been in collecting Merck-friendly research into a single neutrally titled volume -- so that an unsuspecting reader would conclude that these articles were chosen only for their scientific merit and not for conclusions favoring the drug company. If Merck had bundled the same articles into a volume entitled, say, Merck Research Review, and had explicitly said in a ``from the editor'' page that these articles were chosen to highlight Merck's contributions to medicine, then there would have been no fraud. Moreover, assuming that the articles involved in this scandal all originally appeared in respected journals, it seems to me that an honestly labeled presentation would have had essentially the same advertising impact.

2. Were the authors of the original papers clearly and honestly informed of Elsevier's republication of their research in this context? (Were they paid?) If these authors were unaware, then the author copyright agreements Elsevier and most journal publishers require need to be modified. How aware were the members of the honorary editorial board?

3. I wonder if the editors at non-fake journals from Australasia (for example, The Australasian Journal of Dermatology) are offended by this abuse of their geography. I'd also be interested in the process that led to Merck/Elsevier choosing this particular location.

4. Questionable journals are not limited to medical research. For several years I received e-mail announcements for the Antarctica Journal of Mathematics, which appeared to exist somewhere on the border between fraud and self delusion.

Sentence of the day.

``Not only did Waits and Lurie co-star in Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, but avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot infuses fresh blood into the spoken-word delivery from Lurie punctuated by a female chorus.'' --Bill Melville, blogging here about an album by John Lurie.

Indeed, an infusion of fresh blood into the the spoken-word delivery happens to be the only known medical treatment for punctuation by a female chorus.

Is the Semester Over Yet?

I was having a bad dream: In this dream it was night, near morning. I was lying in bed in yesterday's clothes, having been too exhausted to change out of them the night before. I was cold, having been too tired to get under the blankets. My hands hurt from endless typing.

Then the alarm went off, and I awoke: In yesterday's clothes, on top of the blankets, cold, with sharp pains in my hands.